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Old 09-29-2011, 11:51 AM
reppans reppans is offline
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Lots of good ideas folks, thanks.

Allen-frame - I've tried the Birchwood Casey Lead Clean Cloths, they do work but still pretty slowly.

Palmetto SS - I've seen the Brownells lead remover video before and may try that as an option next.

Patrick L - Also heard about the SS brush, but I'm little worried about scratching.... everyone always seem to recommend using only brass in the bore (definitely) and cylinders (probably less important though).

Stevieboy - I haven't tried the dry brush yet, but it makes sense. Most of the other gunk in the gun, that comes out pretty normally, always seems to do well with the pre-soak. Since this crud ring is more cement like, perhaps I'm just reducing the effectiveness of the brass brush by effectively lubricating it first.

gr7070 & Titegroups - I've considered just shooting .38s only, or getting a second .38 gun, but I like occasionally shooting .357s at another range, and I do like the weight of the full underlug on the 686, not to mention trying to save a few bucks by staying with one gun. But here's another option you guys have me thinking about - just get another matching .357 cylinder and dedicate one for .38s (assume it wouldn't need to be "fitted"?). Swapping cylinders would seem to be a lot easier on the rare occasions I do shoot .357s, than trying to clean the special crud ring out after every range trip.

tomuchiron - exactly right.... I just bought a small sharpening bit for my dremel that'll fit inside the .357 case, and yes, I have already popped the primer and insert a long screw & bolt to give me something to hold onto . I'm now looking for a good cone-shaped object to give the perfect flare on the casing too. One annoying thing I've notice, not all my cylinders are exactly the same size. The flared casing sticks on certain cylinders, while it's loose on others, even bone clean..... I'm going to need a couple different sized scapers.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I find that the "special" crud ring problem tends to bother the noobs (that's me ) more than the veterans.... it seems to drive every noob at my range crazy, although most of the veterans I know are mostly avoiding the whole problem since they are hand loading lighter loads in .357 cases . I may get to re-loading at some point, but I'm not there quite yet.

Anyways, thanks for the comments and all the good suggestions.... half this is probably me just being an anal noob .

Last edited by reppans; 09-29-2011 at 11:53 AM.
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